Americans are famously overworked and terrified of taking vacations. And that is no different in Silicon Valley, where young code jockeys are expected to put in long hours on projects that rarely pan out, leading to burnout and high turnover. But startups are testing a new way to milk more work from their staff: paying new hires to take vacations before starting work.

Welcome to the latest installment of Billionaire Musical Chairs. This week's round was a doozy. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg zoomed past billionaire Larry Page, as billionaires-in-training watched the net worth from the sidelines. The real action, however, was on the real estate front.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's deeply sad plan to transform Downtown Las Vegas—the bleakest part of a bleak town—into a startup enclave is dying, Las Vegas Weekly reports. Huge layoffs just arrived, and one of the $350 million project's leaders is already publicly blasting Hsieh.

If female celebrities break into a cold sweat over Reddit users, just image how investors feel after throwing down $50 million in the hopes of profiting off the crowd-sourced site. But lead investor Sam Altman and CEO Yishan Wong appear to have come up with a plan to appease "the often volatile Reddit community."

Just two weeks before San Francisco's 2011 mayoral election, billionaire angel investor Ron Conway pushed out a viral campaign ad for Mayor Ed Lee that featured cameos from local sports stars and Silicon Valley tech celebs. Now, 13 months before Lee's next election, Conway's techie advocacy group has released another ad including all the hallmarks from the original "2 Legit 2 Quit" video.

The reasons to dislike Uber are as large and numerous as its paper valuation, but they all revolve around one central free market conceit: Uber never hides its contempt for you. The latest example comes from venture capitalist Peter Sims, whose ride was tracked to entertain guests at an Uber party.

Two lawsuits filed last month against Google claim the search giant tried to steal superior video streaming technology from VSL Communications, a company it was in talks to acquire. According to the filings, VSL discovered the scheme thanks to some Post-It notes on which phrases like "Try to destroy email" were written. We've obtained what a source claims are copies of the Post-Its.

Walmart, a ruthless retailer known for abusing employees and pulverizing local businesses, just installed Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom onto its board of directors. And why the hell not? Walmart is desperate for some Silicon Valley magic to rub off on its burdened brand.

The key to sound like an informed, annoying Silicon Valley insider for Fall '14 is owning an invite-only Ello account. Talking point: it's like Facebook, but it puts people above companies. Except, exactly like Facebook, brands will run the show.

The European Commission is set to formally accuse Apple of funneling billions into an illegal Irish tax shelter—possibility setting up the world's largest corporation for "a record fine of as much as several billions of euros," according to the Financial Times.

For decades now, the internet has been dominated by the interests of women. You can't load a tab or click a hyperlink without running into diagrams of vaginas, perfume ads, estrogen videos, and whatnot. What's a man to do? This former Yahoo! exec is going to fill the void.

An Uber driver has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury for hitting a passenger in the head with a hammer in Bernal Heights, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco is famous for its yuppie bread lines, especially outside of trendy lunch spots surrounding the startups of SoMa. And you can find conclusive evidence of the industry's maleness at Man Lines, a Tumblr chronicling clusters of Y chromosomes in the city.

Google has been trying to build cars that drive without humans for longer than it's been trying to hire more women and minorities. But the company really knows its audience. Workshops at the center of its diversity initiative were specifically designed for one personality type: "a skeptical, scientifically minded Google employee," says the New York Times.

The extravagant renovation of Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million San Francisco "fixer-upper" has already aggravated neighbors with months of noise and parking concerns. But Zuckerberg's own actions are making the impacts of the ongoing 17 month project worse. According to CBS, the boy billionaire has been paying a squad of squatters to hold parking spots so his construction workers have somewhere to park.

For a third time, a prominent venture capitalist is warning us all that some sort of ominous economic shit is about to go down. And for the third time in a row, he isn't admitting that it's his fault: Today's hypocrite is Marc Andreessen.

What happens when you combine two dying '90s internet relics into one conglomerate of uselessness? According an activist investor at Starboard Value, a proposed merger of Yahoo and AOL could see "significant appreciation" in Yahoo's stock price and the revitalization of both brands. How exciting!

Yesterday, the district attorneys from San Francisco and Los Angeles sent letters to Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar threatening potential legal action, including an injunction to their service unless they make "major changes" regarding background checks and pricing. So where's the usual bombast and bluster about antiquated laws and taxi cartels?

Sir Richard Branson (net worth: $4.6 billion) just tweeted out this photo of himself and Lucas Duplan, whose hilariously disastrous app he invested in last year. The caption is "this is why I invest in startups." Let's think about this.

Ello is a bright and clean new social network that promises, in its manifesto, to stay free of ads, never sell your data, and not make anyone use real names. People are paying attention to Ello because other people are paying attention to Ello. It is invitation only. New members were joining at the rate of 4,000 sign-ups per hour yesterday; the site is doubling in size every 3 or 4 days. Ello just notified me that I can't send out invites right now because "Ello has gone viral."